My complaint:
I was falsely accused of shoplifting. The staff at Checkers N1 City was under the impression i was at the store with my wife. I was there alone. I had a friendly interaction with a couple and their son, but I’ve never seen them before. I was later approached by the staff asking me where is your wife with the blue bag. I had no clue what they where talking about. Told them I’m by myself. They even threatened me by saying if you don’t come clean we will just add more items to the list. I told them to look on the CCTV footage and they will see i came in alone. At that point i had a black bag with me that i was thinking of purchasing and we walked to the back if the store to the security office.
I was under the impression we going to look at the CCTV footage and everything will be sorted out. To my horror when we got the the security office they took the bag that i was considering to buy and accused me of stealing it. The put me in a cage and i had to sit there for hours till the police came. They gave a completely false statement by telling the police they got me outside the store with the bag. I was locked up for 2 nights in the police station. I was then taken to court. I had to pay bail money of R500. I didn’t have R500 so i was taken to prison for another night until my fiance came to bail me out the next day. I had to appear in court on about 5 different dates.
The case was eventually withdraw by the state against me after they viewed the CCTV footage that was submitted as evidence. You could clearly see that i was falsely accused. I want compensation for the terrible ordeal i had to go through 2 nights in police custody and 1 night in prison because they accused me falsely. I was humiliated. It caused strife in my family. I still have nightmares because of this.
Suggested solution:
I want financial compensation.
